With the early passing of Dennis Green this week at age 67, the NFL coaching fraternity lost a giant in more ways than one. He will be remembered as a pioneer having been one of the first African-American head coaches, who proved without a doubt that race was simply a non-starter in the coaching business. There are numerous testimonials about his brilliant interpersonal skills among his players and coaching staffs. He wanted everyone to succeed. Beyond these warm and fuzzy well-deserved platitudes, however, the fact is that Dennis Green earned a spot among the most successful NFL head coaches of all time.

Our analysis of NFL coaching success incorporates a total of four key on-the-field statistical data points into a Coaching Assessment Scoring Hierarchy (CASH) index for the body of a coach’s work. Every coach’s CASH score is then ranked from first to about three hundred, which is total of NFL heads coaches since 1960. Once those coaches who have not met a minimum number of games threshold are eliminated, ninety-four have been around long enough for All-Time consideration. Dennis Green ranks thirty-third on our All Time list. He is just behind Chuck Knox but ahead among others of Hank Stram, Dan Reeves, and Mike Shanahan. With the Vikings he won almost 100 games, actually 97, and lost only 67 for an excellent 61.0% regular season winning percentage. He took the Vikings to the playoffs an incredible 8 out of 10 years. Had he stopped there his ranking would have approached the top ten. Unfortunately as happens with so many coaches, the second time around never equals the success of the first. At Arizona he only won a third of his games and never went to the playoffs.

Our rankings are strictly numbers driven, but it is always refreshing to hear about a successful on-the-field coach who is also a wonderful human being.